


Caution and Desire

by prairiecrow



Series: Solstice and Equinox [2]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Age Difference, Deception, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Seduction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-12
Updated: 2012-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-29 10:16:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/318806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Garak considers a proposal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Caution and Desire

**Author's Note:**

> (a) Set post-"The Wire". (b) Takes place in the "Solstice and Equinox" ficverse.

Garak sat at the desk in his quarters, his head bowed, gazing at what he held in his lap: a small but exquisite box, long and silky-smooth, inlaid with iridescent designs of gleaming horn. He opened it as he'd done every night for the past week, revealing what lay within to his gaze which had been first wondering, then calculating, and was now something of both.

The contents were as beautiful as the container: more so, in fact, because of what they represented. They had knocked Garak's life from its repetitive and fundamentally hopeless course; they promised something that he wasn't sure he dared to reach out and take, agent of the Order though he was.

Bashir. Bashir had given this to him, and evidently the Human even had some concept of what it meant to do so. Amazement outstripped pragmatism yet again as he recalled the words of the proposal he'd been offered, still scarcely able to believe it.

Once he had been a man of almost limitless power, and had he encountered Bashir under those circumstances the outcome of their first meeting would have been significantly different. Under those circumstances he wouldn't have hesitated to embark on a grand seduction, to draw near as slyly as a serpent and as subtly as a dove, to entwine those slender limbs in his coils and to whisper at last in that elegant trembling ear:  _Do you know who I am, beautiful boy? It doesn't matter, as long as you know this: come with me and I'll build an entire world for you, a palace both lovely and sheltered where you will shine like a star in the firmament, admired by all. I will clothe your sweet body in velvet and silk, and in jewelry no less bright than your eyes, and I'll even send women for your pleasure — and men, if that's to your taste — so long as when I come to you, your deepest passion is reserved for me alone. My dark wings will cover you and you will be feared as I am feared, because your power comes directly from my hand and I will destroy anyone who opposes you. Come with me, my precious child, and belong to me forever!_

Once — but no longer, and therefore when he'd approached that remarkable beauty in the Replimat of the run-down space station that was also his prison Garak had been forced to work only with smiles, and a gliding tone of insinuation, and the briefest pressure of his hands on startled young shoulders. And it had succeeded admirably, if only to a point: he couldn't afford to seduce Bashir, in fact he'd had little hope of doing so in light of the man's later-revealed and exclusive predilection for pretty young ladies, but he had enthralled the youth sufficiently that he was at least guaranteed the pleasure of his company on a weekly basis.

In any case he had fancied himself the predator, and Bashir his guileless prey. 

But now…

He slipped the fingers of his right hand under one of the bracelets and lifted it from its black velvet setting, turning it so its ruby facets caught the dim light, perfectly finished and utterly flawless. Shining, enthralling, far brighter and more compelling than the distant stars that surrounded him in this cold exile he endured... brighter even than the increasingly faint promise of home.

He'd thought Bashir merely beautiful and intelligent. He hadn't realized the boy was also capable of sophisticated deception, of misleading him over the course of weeks and months, and of self-control so admirable that any Cardassian would be proud to lay claim to the man who possessed it.

And that…

… that changed everything.

THE END


End file.
